Abstract

Jonathan Rick

The Impartial Spectator’s Amour-propre

This talk explores the intersections between Smith’s account of the desire for mutual sympathy and Rousseau’s psychological principle amour-propre (the concern for recognition).  I contend that, by engendering concern for the recognition of others, amour-propre explains the desire for mutual sympathy and delivers a motivation explanation for why persons take others’ judgments as determining non-instrumental, normative claims on themselves.  Furthermore, I argue that Rousseau’s discussions of the dangers of inflamed amour-propre provide a substantial normative justification of Smith’s model of Impartial Spectatorship as a moral constraint on satisfying the fundamental desire for recognition in ways consonant with equal respect for persons.